So Brad comes down his stairway and hugs his dad, and his mom is all, "What happened? What's going on? YOU'RE GAY? OH MY GOD! ME TOO! I'm gay too! Isn't that fabulous?!" No, she doesn't say that. Brad informs his parents that he got into NYU. Rock on, Brad. ROCK ON. When Brad gets to art class, the only other gay person in Highland Park, his art teacher, tells him congratulations on getting into college. Brad is clearly jazzed up. As well he should be. Dude. I was working at Rose Records and taking a year off when my mom called me to tell me I got into the Goodman School of Drama at DePaul University. About twenty-five customers had to have their hearing checked at the local emergency room as a result of my shrieks of joy. Seriously.

All of Brad's friends are ecstatic for him except Abby. "I'm so emotional today and I don't know why," she whines as Brad puts his books into his locker. Brad wants to know if Abby's coming over tonight, and the tone of her voice when she responds in the affirmative is pretty much the equivalent of a three-toed sloth lying back, scratching its belly, and thinking to itself, "Yeah...I guess I could get up. Or I could just...you know...lie here for few more days." It would seem that Little Miss Self-Involved is a wee bit concerned about what SHE'S going to do when Brad goes off to school. "I can't just drive over to his house or call him up every two seconds just to see what he's doing. It's gonna be so weird." It's called LIFE, Abby. Look it up. The kid just got into his first-choice school, he's super-talented, he's not too far away from ultra-coolness, and let me make this clear: HE'S YOUR FRIEND. This is SO not about you. How about parking that ozone-layer of a psyche of yours for a little bit and telling YOUR FRIEND how happy you are for him? Huh? God. What a little snot.

I mean, really. My best friend Lena went off to Winona, Minnesota to go to college, and I went off to Ohio University for two weeks (before I realized that the drama students there were more interested in keggers before classes than they were in, um, ACTING), and then I took a year off and it never once, NOT ONCE, occurred to me to be all pissy because my best friend wasn't at my beck and call 24/7. Hello? Long distance, anyone?